"Nu Couche" - 2nd-highest ever for painting at auction with $170.4 million

Posted On: 16:05:19 - 18/11/2015 - Viewed: 873

A nearly 100-year-old painting of an alluring nude created by the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani sold for $170.4 million on Monday night (9/11) becomes the second-highest price ever paid at auction for a work of art.

A nearly 100-year-old painting of an alluring nude created by the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani sold for $170.4 million on Monday night (9/11) becomes the second-highest price ever paid at auction for a work of art.

Modigliani's 1917-1918 canvas "Nu Couché" is widely considered among his finest works. The painting was the "star lot" around which the New York auction house Christie's built its "Artist's Muse" auction on Monday, The New York Times reported.

Artnet News called it "pure, quintessential Modigliani," with rich colors, "lush paint handling" and "pulsing eroticism." It predicted earlier Monday that the painting could go for $100 million or more, in large part because it was Modigliani's "best nude and perhaps his best painting ever."

With the sale, Modigliani becomes just the sixth artist to enter the so-called $100 Million-at-Auction Club — its members include Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Alberto Giacometti and Edvard Munch.